The media spectacle surrounding Donald Trump’s selection process for secretary of state was, for weeks, fueled by an unusually public battle between the president-elect’s top allies and advisers over who should get the nomination—all of which eventually seemed to weigh on the billionaire showman at the center. After endless days and nights of tallying the pros and cons of the top contenders—a list that had narrowed to former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, onetime Republican nominee Mitt Romney, disgraced former general David Petraeus, and Tennessee senator Bob Corker—Trump reportedly grew frustrated with the burden of naming someone to the top diplomatic post. He was “looking for a way out,” one person close to the process toldThe Washington Post. Then, into Trump Tower walked Robert Gates, who unexpectedly offered an unfamiliar alternative: ExxonMobil C.E.O. Rex Tillerson. Trump nominated him two weeks later.

At the time, Trump didn’t know who Tillerson was, according to a Post report documenting the president-elect’s decision-making process. But Gates, a former C.I.A. director and secretary of defense, made a compelling case for Tillerson, whose company was also one of his clients at the consulting firm he runs with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, RiceHadleyGates. Rice had also mentioned Tillerson’s name to Vice President-elect Mike Pence the day before, and so his stock began to rise. Not only did picking Tillerson offer Trump “a way out” from the Guiliani-Romney quagmire that had divided his inner circle, he was also the type of candidate he was reportedly looking for: a bold dealmaker and unorthodox businessman who had tangled with some of the world’s most formidable leaders, from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh. He was, in other words, exactly the kind of man Donald Trump imagines himself to be.

When he first recommended Tillerson for the State Department job, Gates told the Post that Trump seemed “intrigued” and that “it was not something he had considered.” Tillerson’s appointment is also a window into Trump’s leadership style and decision-making approach. Giuliani and Romney were widely viewed as the top two candidates for the state job, but both had their drawbacks—and advocates in Trump Tower. Newt Gingrich and Steve Bannon reportedly threw their weight behind the former mayor, but Trump reportedly grew concerned that an aging Giuliani was past his prime and that his potential conflicts of interests would stall his confirmation (the two publicly parted ways last week). Then there was Romney—one of Trump’s harshest critics during the election—who loyalists like Gingrich, Bannon, and Kellyanne Conwayvociferously opposed, but who had reportedly garnered the support of Establishment Republicans Reince Priebus, Pence, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Still, Romney’s stock was tainted by the former governor’s antagonistic stance toward Russia and his refusal to apologize to Trump for his criticism during the campaign, according to the Post. (Trump spokesman Jason Miller dismissed the apology report as “completely false.”)

Up against the wall, Trump went off book, picking an oil executive on no one’s short list and sending a message that he is not necessarily the malleable political novice he sometimes appears.

The battle over the State Department isn’t over, of course. Tillerson has already come under intense scrutiny for his ties to Russia and friendly relationship with Putin, who personally awarded the ExxonMobil executive the Order of Friendship in 2013, according to the Post. (Tillerson himself has a major financial stake in lifting the U.S. economic sanctions on Russia, which stalled an estimated $300 billion deal between Exxon and the state-controlled Russian oil giant Rosneft.) A trio of G.O.P. Senators—John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham—have already indicated that they may oppose Tillerson’s appointment. “I don’t know what Mr. Tillerson’s relationship with Vladimir Putin was, but I’ll tell you it is a matter of concern to me,” McCain said during an interview Saturday with Fox News, shortly after Tillerson emerged as the top contender to lead State. “You want to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt because the people have spoken. But Vladimir Putin is a thug, a bully, and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.”

Gates, whose business partner Stephen Hadley has also advised Exxon for years, reportedly had a different take on Tillerson’s controversial pedigree. “It would be a mistake to confuse a friendly relationship with friendship. Rex is a very tough-minded realist,” Gates told the Post. “If you want to understand Rex Tillerson, and it may be a corny thing to say, but you’ve got to understand that he’s an Eagle Scout.”